As told to

Angus Rittenburg. Courtesy of Angus Rittenburg

2025-11-07T10:05:01Z

• Angus Rittenburg, a former Tesla engineer, launched THC beverage company Wynk in 2021.
• Rittenburg applied lessons from Tesla to successfully build and scale his business.
• Breaking complex problems into smaller ones and prioritizing quality are two of the lessons he learned.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Angus Rittenburg, the 33-year-old CEO of Wynk in New Jersey. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Before becoming a CEO, I worked as a mechanical design engineer at Tesla in Palo Alto, California,** **from 2015 to 2017. I first did an internship with Tesla, where I developed an innovative battery technology that we ultimately patented. Tesla was my first job out of college.

In Tesla’s fast-paced and dynamic environment, I focused on designing the Model 3 battery architecture. I designed a lot of the electrical, mechanical, and thermal components. Otherwise, I was in meetings and coordinating with hundreds of other engineers.

I left Tesla with the goal of starting my own thing, and later, in 2021, I launched Wynk, a THC beverage company, with my cofounders Casey Parzych and Shawn Sheehan.

I took many lessons with me from Tesla — including three that I’ve carried into starting my own business.

1. The right answer is usually simple

At Tesla, I learned that the right answer is usually simple. The problems we were solving were incredibly complex, with requirements ranging from vehicle performance to crash test safety standards to energy density.

I learned that any complex problem becomes easier to solve if you break it into parts and find the simplest solution for each one. It took me two years to figure that out at Tesla, but I’ve carried that knowledge forward ever since.

The first challenge we encountered with Wynk was getting started. When we began, there weren’t many THC brands at all in the US, but it was growing quickly in Canada, where it was federally legal.

In the US, in 2021, you needed a production facility in every single state where you wanted to sell. Then, further complicating it, you needed a cannabis license for each facility.

We came up with a simple solution. We decided to build one facility, but made it mobile so we could move it from state to state. We designed an entire canning facility on a 53-foot tractor-trailer.

Then, rather than obtaining cannabis licenses ourselves, we partnered with individuals who already had them and brought their production capability to them. We took a complex, challenging situation and made it simple.

2. The importance of quality

Another thing I learned from Tesla was the importance of quality. Tesla has an absolute obsession with quality, meticulously testing every individual part of the vehicle to ensure it meets the highest standards.

When we started Wynk, this was also important to us. I purchased all the lab equipment that cannabis testing facilities typically use, allowing us to perform all necessary quality testing in-house and not solely rely on third-party labs.

We’ve done this since day one — performing all of our own internal testing before sending anything to a third party. This ensures that all products coming off the line are flawless and that consumers receive the highest-quality product.

If we tell our consumers that Wynk has five milligrams of THC, we need to ensure it stays consistent throughout its entire shelf life. To achieve this, we invested heavily in testing equipment and personnel early on so that when we formulated the product, it was guaranteed to be stable and accurately dosed.

3. Having strong talent

I’d say the one thing Tesla does better than anybody is that they only hire the best of the best. We’ve done the same with Wynk. We’ve hired people with decades of experience in the alcohol space.

They know the alcohol playbook and how you should market alcohol. Wynk sells through beer, wine, and spirits distributors, as well as alcohol-licensed retail.

No matter the company, it’s always about investing in really good talent who bring new ideas that actually make sense for the industry.

One thing I learned on my own

At Tesla, I never had to worry about building teams in HR, finance, legal, recruiting, benefits, and all the other foundational elements required for starting a business. Tesla was well-established, well-staffed, and well-run. When we started Wynk, we had to build it from scratch.

It turns out that startup businesses’ hardest problems are often the simple things that every business has already figured out.

Tesla taught me how to solve problems extremely effectively, even under immense pressure, and also how to work within a large set of disparate constraints, including safety, performance, regulations, reliability, crash test standards, design for manufacturing, and more, while delivering an exceptional final product for consumers.

I wouldn’t work for Tesla again — being a founder is too fun. But I am extremely thankful for my time at Tesla and the lessons learned.

• as told to
• Tesla

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